Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Building an Empire

Close behind my love of gardening is my need to build things with wood. Although our new apartment came with a lovely deck already in place I can always find ways to improve it. My first task was to design and build a work/potting bench and some seating. Simple you'd think, but made complicated by the fact that this entire row of buildings were built at an angle to the street. We'd already run into the fun that comes of trying to build square fixtures in a house without any right angles. A similar issue exist on the deck so it took several days of measuring and calculating angles to get the plans in place. Fortunately we live right across the street from a large building centre so carrying all the supplies home is a breeze and multiple trips are no hardship. In a couple days I had built a solid work bench and a cozy corner seating bench. I left the space under the work bench as storage for the green bin, compost and recycling bins and lined it with styrofoam to block the odors associated with them. In the winter it will make a good sheltered place for plants that need to winter over outside in pots. Under the seating bench is more storage for coolers and gardening supplies.

With that finished it was on to the next project- a clothesline! I have had a clothesline at every apartment I've lived at in Toronto and consider them to be an absolute necessity. Although we actually own a dryer it rarely gets used, for both financial and practical reasons- running a dryer in an apartment especially one without air conditioning is expensive and masochistic. I prefer to line dry everything, even in winter, and find that it also increases the lifespan of our clothing. not to mention the smell of line dried bedding beats fabric softeners any day!

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Backyard Farms

About Me

CallieK is my online nickname and so it seems only fitting that my farmer is named Callie as well. We look a bit alike although I think my nose is smaller.
I live in downtown Toronto with my boyfriend the Russian dancer and our 3 cats. As soon as Toronto allows backyard chickens we'll be adding some of those. For now we spend most of our time building, planting things, and canning everything that will go in a jar.